Let Them Eat Horse - Misplaced Concerns

Do you remember a few months back, when people got all up in arms over the administration lifting a ban that would seem to lead to everyone eating horse meat?

I LOVE horses. Love love love them. No, I don't even ride, I've never properly learned, but I love them. I love being around them. I don't even mind the smell of their manure. (Cows, stinky. Horses, earthy and mild.) My favorite job was on a horse farm, just me and about 100 horses for 8 hours at a time. No humans. Just horses. And the occasional rat or skunk. I learned horses actually DO lay down to sleep when they feel most comfortable and safe. I learned that mother horses are FIERCE about their offspring, and actually teach them manners, often better moms than some humans I have seen. I found that there is almost nothing quite so comfortable and comforting as leaning up against a horse as it contentedly munches on hay.

Did you really think this was horse?

So was I outraged when, back in November, it was announced that the Obama administration was somehow incomprehensibly clearing the way for people to eat horse meat in this country? No. I was actually amused (if not more than a little annoyed) at the reaction of most people. 1) Most people have little or no idea what the reality of the situation was. 2) It wasn't like this little piece of legislation was going to have horse meat appearing at your local grocery store. 3) There are so much worse things to be concerned about in the food industry, yet these things go largely ignored.

Let's examine these points, shall we?

1) Here's the reality of the situation: They lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections. Did anyone catch that part? This is not a new situation. This lifted a relatively young and new ban on FUNDING INSPECTIONS. Most people got all up and huffy thinking (incorrectly) that suddenly the Obama administration said, in a bill, "Go eat horse." No. It did not even allocate money for funding the inspections. And with the USDA being woefully underfunded, nothing was going to happen immediately anyway. Reality: There was a slaughterhouse in Illinois that butchered horses until 2007. Where was the outcry then? (Oh - that's right - we didn't have Facebook to get all up in stupidity about stuff we don't really research.)

2) Reality: there WERE slaughterhouses open when no one thought about it, but the meat went to other countries. As it is now, if such a place were to open, the meat would still get sent elsewhere. And it would only open after a lot of controversy and opposition anyway. But, again, injecting reality in there: I have been to livestock auctions. I have seen what goes down. It's not pretty. You get a cow or horse that is too old to be of use to anyone or anything... it's not a nice warm-fuzzy situation. At present, horses get shipped to Canada or Mexico to get slaughtered. Where's the outcry for American jobs on that one? Huh? (Yes I am being facetious.) Lifting this ban does NOT change the FACT that consumption of horse meat is still under another ban in most states. California is one.

3) People I know got their undies in a huge wad from this. And yet, Monsanto goes unknown, BPA is everywhere, and high-fructose corn syrup and other unhealthy things are consumed left and right. We're getting better with the Monsanto thing, and BPA is getting more well-known, but we still eat and give our kids the crappiest stuff. But by all means, let's get up in arms over the sale of horse meat, which isn't even a real problem, while these things and SO many more ARE real problems. Let's focus on buzz words and false panic, while we continue a ban on growing industrial hemp. Let's blow things out of proportion while stuffing cancer-causing chemicals and additives into our obese kids. Where's the outrage over much, much, MUCH worse stuff going on in our foods???

Nothing to see here.

Just Because We Can, Doesn't Mean We Should.

What's better, what's worse? Veggies not in season shipped from far away, or locally-grown, sustainably, ethically raised meat?

No such thing, anti-omnivores say. You can't have meat with ethics.

In a previous post, I talked about "Tomatoland" and how our demand for out-of-season fruits and veggies needs to be examined. but no one examines it. Everyone just tromps right on down to the store and gets bent if their produce they want RIGHT NOW isn't there and pretty.

Let's think about times past. The Midwest... the East Coast.... Native Americans and early settlers. Were they vegetarians? Hardly. They would have starved by February. They had to plan ahead, and grow as much as they could and store as much as they could and - here's the big part - rely on what was readily available around them at the time. That meant your diet was filled with grains and roots and whatever Pa brought home from the hunt at certain times of the year. (Yeah, I pretty much did a Little House reference right there.) Can you go out and buy lettuce whenever you wish? Of course you can! That's what's so great about modern times! That's what freedom and choice is all about! Dad-gum it, I have the gull-durn right to march down to my grocery store and buy me my completely out-of-season cucumbers! Because I'm a gosh-darn American, and that's what we do! Because we are superior and evolved!

We can do this. Should we?

Shipping *stuff* from wherever so we can eat it whenever involves a lot of used-up resources. Start with the crap needed for growing the produce. Pesticides galore. Forcing crops to grow in places they are not usually grown, without the nutrients they usually have. (But jobs!!! Giving people jobs!!! Nope. Fail. False.) Skip a few steps and think about the shipping of said product from Florida or California to, say, Ohio. Fuel. Fossil fuel, that is, consumed for what? So you can have your out-of-season stuff. (But... jobs??) Because you deserve it. Let's think about all the packaging. Unnecessary  packaging. Of course it is unnecessary, because it is NOT necessary for you to have that tomato just because you want it.

Is this an easy problem to fix? Well, yes and no. Yes because we have the power to do it, no because it would take such a huge shift in consciousness and lifestyle that it surely won't happen any time soon. Do we need to? Yes. Look at where we are heading. We need to change a lot. We need to be local local local and we need to stop taking so much for granted. We need to look at what we do and why, and how we can change that.

You know why cucumbers used to taste SO GOOD to me in the summer? Because I could only have them in the summer. Because I didn't take them for granted. We need to get back to being more like that, or we may as well forget it. Mother Earth does NOT need us. We need her.

Juice Boxes = Bad, But Not Why You Think

I'll start right out with it: I do not like juice boxes. I find them pointless. I find them lazy. I find them wasteful. Oh so fun, oh so cute with their little plastic straws. LAZY. A quick way to get kids to shut up and get them full of sugar. The juices in most of those isn't even very good for kids. Proof? Right here in an e-mail I got, asking to get the FDA to change regulations.

Here's some text from the e-mail:

Every child enjoys a juice box with her after school snack. But what parents don’t know is that a disturbing number of juices contain unsafe levels of lead and inorganic arsenic that can lead to serious health problems for children. While the government has rules in place to limit lead and arsenic in our drinking water, there’s nothing to stop companies from making juices and other children’s drinks that contain unsafe levels of those poisons. A new study by Consumer Reports found that at least 10% of apple and grape juices sampled had more arsenic than what the government says is safe for drinking water -- and even more had unsafe levels of lead.

Now it’s up to the Food and Drug Administration to make rules to regulate how much arsenic and lead can be in juices, like they do for drinking water.

While not lethal, that kind of sustained, low-level exposure during early childhood "carries the most serious long-term risk," according to researchers. The dangerous effects of unsafe levels of inorganic arsenic and lead in children are shocking:

• Inorganic arsenic is linked to cancers, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and immune system problems
• Children exposed to drinking water with unsafe arsenic levels had decreased intellectual function
• Low-level arsenic exposure is "significantly related to poorer scores in language, visuospatial skills, processing speed, and immediate memory," among other problems
• Unsafe levels of lead were found in 25% of juices sampled, and lead exposure is linked to brain development and behavioral problems

If lead and arsenic are unsafe for children in their drinking water, the same poisons should be regulated for the juices that so many children love. -Change.org

Why? WHY must the government step in for this? Why do we not just put this information out there and let parents actually make the CHOICE to stop giving their kids crap? People clamor all the time about too many government regulations. Here's another one. Do we really need this? Comparing drinking water to JUICE BOXES is, in my ever so humble opinion, absurd. Drinking water is kind of on the side of necessity. Juice boxes are on the side of POINTLESS. 

But... but... fruit! And juice! And vitamins!!! BULLCRAP. Sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors... how about all those? How about NOT giving your kids stuff that is bad for them in packaging that is wasteful and bad for the planet? Sure, I too have the uber-cool totebag made from re-purposed juice pouches, but do we really think the vast majority of those are being reclaimed? 

Bottom line: No, the FDA does NOT need to regulate what is in these juices. Parents need to regulate the crap that goes in their kids. Period.